WARRING STATES PERIOD, 5TH-4TH CENTURY BC

Compare the similar S-shaped dragon pendant, also with bird's-head tail, in the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, illustrated by M. Loehr in Ancient Chinese Jades, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 1975, pp. 287 and 293, no. 427, which has a similar pointed ear, as well as comma spirals on the body, but is somewhat more elaborate than the present pendants. Other related pendants are also illustrated pp. 286, and 288 to 293, nos. 423 to 426. All of these pendants have a small suspension hole below the upper edge of the curved body indicating their orientation when suspended, and based on this orientation the heads would have either been facing upwards, like those of no. 427 and the present plaque or backwards facing the arched body. See, also, the similar pendant from Yutaishan, Jingzhou, Hubei province, now in the Jingzhou Museum, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Jades Unearthed in China, Beijing, 2005, p. 111.